City Council Approves Funds for Rally Social Enterprise Accelerator

April 12, 2021 – ORLANDO FL – In order to help address local challenges in the city as part of Future-Ready efforts, the Orlando City Council approved a funding agreement with the Central Florida Foundation, Inc. to expand this summer’s Rally Social Enterprise Accelerator.  

This partnership with Rally will allow the city to issue two community challenges to address and Rally will help incubate social entrepreneurs in the program to help build their business, create jobs and develop solutions to address those identified challenges. 

Possible examples of the challenges the city may issue were identified together with the community through development of the Future-Ready Master Plan and include, making housing more affordable, increasing recycling, improving home indoor air quality in underserved communities, improving the experience aboard mass transit, and bridging the digital divide.   

“Innovation starts with one idea, and in order for those ideas to grow into a reality, we must continue to invest and engage our local entrepreneurs,” said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. “Collaboration is key to advancing opportunities for all and ensuring our city is in the best possible position to take advantage of the innovative and technological advances coming our way.” 

This expansion advances the goal of the city’s Future-Ready City Master Plan to explore strategies of where new technology and innovation can be beneficial to the city and helps entrepreneurs transform their ideas into sustainable solutions. 

“We appreciate the collaborative support from the City of Orlando for Rally since our founding”, said Rob Panepinto Co-Founder and Chairman for Rally. “This additional support, both in funding and potential pilot programs with the City, will allow us to scale innovative social entrepreneurs with smart city and sustainability solutions to create more high wages that also help meet the stated goals of the Future Ready City initiative.” 

If successful, the city will evaluate how to potentially replicate this targeted approach to invest in the entrepreneur community in the future. 

Businesses and entrepreneurs interested in applying for the summer 2021 Rally program should visit rallysea.com/accelerator. 

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